


Triskelion

by windsweptfic



Category: Daredevil (2003), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsweptfic/pseuds/windsweptfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the Norse myth of Nari and Vali.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** contains minor-character death. Originally posted [here](http://windswept-fic.livejournal.com/43500.html) on Livejournal.

It ended like this.

Rain poured from a grey sky split by lightning, the sound of battle a distant echo beneath the throb of his heart pounding in his ears. Each breath rattled in his throat; any movement displacing the rod that was impaled through his shoulder, pinning him to the concrete and sending shards of pain tearing through his chest. His weapons lay scattered, out of reach, and he could do nothing more than lay there: propped against the wall as he looked up at the man who was going to kill him.

"Bullseye," Clint rasped.

Bullseye grinned and dropped down, straddling his hips and jarring the bone broken in his leg. It tore a cry from his throat and he tried to shove the branded asshole away with his good hand, but the other marksman easily caught it, patting his knuckles in a fond gesture before twisting sharply to break his wrist.

He screamed.

When the white haze faded from beneath his eyelids, he gazed blearily through the water obscuring his vision to find Bullseye toying with one of his stainless-steel arrows. He turned his head to the side as the tip caressed his cheek, the sharp metal scoring a line across his skin. Bullseye licked the trail of blood from the blade with a quiet hum.

"We had a good time, didn't we?" he mused, tapping the flat of the arrowhead against Clint's jaw. "Chasing and running, running and chasing. You're a good shot, little hawk, but I'm better."

Clint choked on a laugh, blood flecking his lips as he grinned red.

"You hit my shoulder, you stupid _dick_."

Bullseye snarled and grabbed hold of the rod, twisting it until Clint let out an agonized howl. His body spasmed helplessly as he gasped for air through the searing pain.

"I was aiming for it," Bullseye gritted.

Clint choked on a wheezing laugh, looking up at his opponent with a sneering grin.

"No, you weren't."

Bullseye let go of him, standing up and taking a step backward with the arrow still clenched in his fist. He spun it between his fingers as he glared down at Clint, a muscle working in his jaw. But after a moment he forcibly relaxed, shrugging his shoulders with a smug expression—because they both knew that he had still won.

"You know, I would call you a worthy opponent," he drawled, "But apparently, you weren't worthy enough."

He twirled the arrow for a final time before pulling back his arm with a smile.

Clint tilted his head up, raised his chin, and faced his death.


	2. Chapter 2

It began like this.

"Are you sure you can't just throw him back from whence he came or something?" Clint shouted over the roar of helicopter rotors. They were circling over the chaos currently stampeding through downtown New York, a group of what Thor said were 'fire giants' terrorizing Manhattan. A figure wearing a rather silly-looking cape and a helmet with giant horns stood on an overturned car, arms raised like some kind of demented conductor. Multiple copies of him were already engaged in fighting, one throwing balls of fire at Natasha while two others kept Steve occupied, Tony busy trying to take down the massive burning giants.

Thor looked at him with a frown, as though offended on his brother's behalf.

"Loki is not some creature of Muspellheim to be banished," he declared, voice booming over the din. "He is Asgardian! He is Aesir!"

"He's destroying my favorite Chinese place!" Clint yelled back.

They had been expecting Loki for months now, ever since a SHIELD agent in Sweden spotted the elusive trickster god. While Thor had been overjoyed to learn that his brother wasn't dead—and Fury wisely kept his own thoughts on the matter to himself—he also warned that Loki was never seen unless he wanted to be. Therefore, all of the Avengers had been forced to go through Norse Mythology 101 in preparation for the inevitable attack, and had spent most of their downtime suspiciously wary of anyone who tried to ask them for so much as directions, knowing full well what the God of Lies was capable of.

"I'll have Stark buy you another one," Phil cut in as the copter lowered itself close enough to the ground to drop rappelling lines. "Hulk is on his way; you two get down there."

Thor nodded and leapt from the helicopter, landing unscathed on the asphalt forty feet below.

"Asshole," Clint muttered.

"Help out as much as you can, and then try to find high ground," Phil told him, tucking an extra comm device into one of the pockets of Clint's uniform. He'd been doing it ever since the _one time_ Clint had lost his, and it was almost as endearing as it was insulting. "You have those liquid nitrogen arrows Stark made up, try to use them to slow down the fire jotnar."

"I know the drill," Clint replied peevishly. Phil narrowed his eyes and he just grinned impishly in return, leaning over to press a swift kiss to the agent's cheek, eschewing the descending harness as he grabbed hold of the thick rope in his gloved hands. "Don't wait up!"

He dropped out the side of the open helicopter, gleefully ignoring Phil's shout of 'God damn it, Barton!' as he fast-roped it down to the ground. He was only a few yards behind Thor and his bow was in his grasp as soon as he landed, sprinting after the god who was yelling words in Old Norse that Clint hoped were profanities.

They were intercepted by a pair of the fire giants, one throwing itself at Thor while the other barreled toward Clint. He skidded to a halt, standing his ground and firing off arrows in rapid succession, the icy projectiles embedding themselves in the giant's chest. Where they struck, the fire on its body dimmed, and it stumbled in surprise as a volley of arrows put the flames on its chest out completely.

"Any tips on how to kill these things, Thor?" Steve shouted. His uniform was fire-retardant but his skin was flushed pink from the flames, sweat dripping down his forehead as he fought off one of Loki's clones and a fire giant at the same time.

"Hit them enough times, and they will go down," came the incredibly useless reply.

Clint dove out of the way as the giant reached him, rolling back onto his knees and coming up with bow cocked, firing a line of arrows down the creature's spine. The flames died further and he allowed himself a pleased smirk even as he saw the massive fist heading toward his stomach, the force of the blow sending him flying like a rag doll: slamming him into Thor with a rather sickening crunch. Thor was none the worse for wear, and his giant was already lying extinguished on the ground as Clint grabbed hold of his armor to pull himself up, Thor's hand a steadying weight on his shoulder.

"Loki!" Thor shouted. Clint winced, because he was fairly certain they could hear that yell all the way on Staten Island. "Brother, cease this madness!"

One of the closest Loki-clones turned toward them, an impish grin on his lips. The god of mischief was dark-haired, lean and lithe and looked nothing like his brother, and Clint was definitely going to Ask about that later just to annoy Thor. Yet as Loki caught sight of them he stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening in shock and the color draining from his face.

The fire giant barreling toward them vanished.

So did all the others.

And then so did Loki.

Clint blinked, looking around the destroyed street in the ensuing stunned silence.

"Well. That was kind of a letdown."

 

* * *

 

As far as enemies went, Loki really wasn't that bad.

Sure, he destroyed a city block now and then, or decided that the Statue of Liberty would look better in Central Park, but he was no supervillain as far as Clint was concerned. Where Faustus tried to turn them all into nutjobs and Doom liked to blow up anything Reed Richards had built (Clint had mentioned more than once that maybe he should just _stop making things_ ), Loki was more of a 'let's recreate Ghostbusters and send a giant marshmallow man raging through the Upper West Side' kind of guy.

Clint rather liked him.

The next time he came face-to-face with the trickster god was on a completely unrelated mission, when some of Doom's robot toys were running rampant in Brooklyn and the Faily Four were out of town. Thor was busy smacking things around while Tony used the machines as target practice, and Clint was covering them from a nearby rooftop by seeing how many of the flying parts he could hit before they touched the ground. He would later get scolded for having too much fun as he didn't notice Doom himself appearing behind him until it was too late, the comm in his ear exploding, rupturing an eardrum and jerking his aim to send one of his arrows dangerously close to Thor's head.

When he spun around, Doom was standing frozen in place and Loki was standing there, frowning at him in disapproval.

Clint didn't know who he should shoot at.

"The Avengers are mine," Loki chided, making a 'tsk'ing sound. "And it is very impolite to break things that do not belong to you."

He snapped his fingers and Doom vanished, and when he turned around, Clint found himself as paralyzed as the psycho technophile doctor had been. He was only able to gape as Loki tilted his head to the side, brilliant blue eyes with millennia of knowledge seeming to pierce right through him.

With a twitch of his hand, Loki undid the damage to his ear, restoring the comm unit as well. He walked over to pat Clint patronizingly on the head.

"Try to be more careful next time, shall we?"

He then disappeared in a wisp of purple light, leaving Clint whole and unharmed and incredibly confused.

 

* * *

 

"I don't know what 'm gonna tell Phil," Clint mumbled a few weeks later as he stared down into his whiskey glass, as though getting to the bottom of it would solve all his problems. "I mean—he got it for me, you know? That was the first time anyone's really given me...anything. It was just a stupid fucking mug and that stupid fucking blond giant had to go and fucking break it."

Clint usually didn't swear so much, and certainly not in front of a lady, but he was eight glasses into a bottle of Jim Beam and the alternative was to go back to the Avengers Mansion and use Thor as a pincushion. Except then he would just have to see Phil's disappointed face because he'd spent so much time bringing the Norse moron into the fold, and Clint hated doing anything that would disappoint Phil.

He drained the rest of his glass and looked up hopefully, but the bartender was already filling up another. She was tall and willowy with dark red hair, and she vaguely reminded him of Natasha, who usually would be the one he spouted all this nonsense off to except she was away on a mission with Phil. But the bartender had made an excellent stand-in, listening to him for the past hour or two as he'd rambled, offering her advice when he wanted it and nodding along when he didn't. She slid the glass across the bar and Clint cupped it between his hands gratefully.

"And y'know, this isn't even the first time," he continued morosely. "I get that he doesn't grasp normal-people behavior and all; I do. And the whole lack of personal space thing, alright, I was willing to let it go. But then there was grabbing the pocketwatch Natasha gave me with his big dumb hands and using my bow and _nobody_ touches my fucking bow, even Tony knows better than to touch my fucking bow, and then he broke my mug and I want to hit him a lot but it would just be like kicking a huge stupid blond dog."

Running out of steam for the moment, Clint leaned forward and rested his forehead on the cool wooden countertop, trying to stop the world from swaying. The bartender patted his arm consolingly.

"Do you think this Phil of yours is going to be angry with you?"

Clint let out a soft huff of air, not raising his head.

"He only gets mad at me when I do stupid shit. Like rappel without a harness or climb without gear or shoot at old naval mines." He paused for a moment, looking up because it was _important_ that one fact was made clear. "In my defense, I didn't know they were still live."

The bartender raised an amused eyebrow at him.

"Then why are you so concerned? If he loves you, he'll understand."

Clint made a low noise in his throat. He lifted his head enough to take another drink, staring into the amber liquid unhappily.

"'s not about that. I mean, it is about that. But I'm just a fucking ex-carnie, you know? I'm a glorified circus freak. And he—that he makes time for me..." he shook his head. "I've never had something like this before. Something this special. Something this—well, long," he admitted. "He...he makes me feel like I'm something. Something important. Something...something...aw, fuck."

He thumped his head back down onto the bar.

"I don't have a lot of things that are important to me," he said, voice soft as he stared at the shiny wood beneath him. "I don't get attached. But I would—I would bring down the goddamn world for him. Or raise it up, that's more his style. That mug...we'd only been together for a few months. He was out on—business, in Greece. It was this lame kitschy thing he'd picked up in Athens for probably five bucks, but it meant he was thinking about me. Even when he had so many other things to worry about, he still thought about me."

Tears stung his eyes and Clint knew that he was well and truly drunk, then.

"I loved that fucking mug," he whispered.

The bar's jukebox was playing some horrible crooning Beatles song that Clint really wanted to stop, and he staggered to his feet to go do whatever was necessary to turn it off before the bartender caught his wrist in a deceptively strong grip. She looked at him like she knew what he was planning on doing and he sighed, slumping back onto the stool.

"I'm wasted," he pronounced.

The bartender let go of his wrist with a quirk of her lips.

"I know. I'll call you a cab."

"But I want another," he argued, though he looked down at his still half-full glass a bit dubiously. She chuckled.

"Nine is enough for you, my friend."

Clint sighed in defeat, slouching against the bar as she called up a taxi company. The jukebox had switched over to one of his favorite Metallica songs, at least, so that was some comfort. He sat in silence for a while as he contemplated his whiskey, unable to bring himself to drink any more; past the point where consuming any more alcohol would do anything. When a horn honked outside the bartender came around and helped him stagger out to his cab, surprisingly strong for someone of her stature.

He sank into the back seat as she stood at the door, offering him a smile.

"Phil sounds like a decent man, Clint. He's a good match for you."

Clint sketched a lazy salute in response to the approval in her voice. She shut his door and leaned down to pass a roll of cash to the driver.

"890 Fifth Avenue. Try not to make him throw up."

Clint opened his mouth to protest having his cab fare paid for but they were already pulling away from the sidewalk, merging into the endless lanes of New York's streets as they drove toward the Avengers Mansion.

It wasn't until the next day, desperately hungover and wishing Bruce would just _stop talking_ , that Clint remembered he'd never given her an address or a name—and that the god of mischief was also known for his shapeshifting.

 

* * *

 

It took over a month for Phil and Natasha to finish up their mission in Romania, but Clint only had three and a half days to enjoy having his lover back before some psycho decided to ruin things.

 _"Barton, get back into position!"_

"No can do, sir," Clint panted as he slung his bow across his back, clambering up the ladder that led to the next building. The buildings in Hell's Kitchen were tightly compacted, pressed together so that you could pretty much walk across the rooftops from one to the other. When he got to the top he jerked to the side, narrowly avoiding a rusty nail as it whizzed by his ear with a speed that would have torn through flesh and bone. The psycho he was chasing—Bullseye, who had a _target_ carved into his forehead, and who the hell _does_ that?—laughed merrily as he sprinted toward the next building, Clint racing after him.

 _"If this is about that challenge Bullseye issued you, Barton, I swear to god—"_

"Don't be stupid," Clint snapped.

 _"You need to wait for backup—"_

"No!" Clint got to the edge of the building and leapt down to the next one, rolling into the impact and coming back up running. "The further I get him away from the others, the better. If I keep him distracted he can't shoot things at them, and they're not the ones he's interested in anyway. I'm the only one who can take this guy, Phil."

 _"...Clint, don't you **dare** —"_

Clint yanked out his comm piece, hurling it away as he put his head down and surged forward. He still had his extra that he could use after this was over, and he couldn't focus with Phil's frantic voice in his ear. He could ignore anyone else, but never Phil.

Bullseye jumped down onto the next building, and the distance between them was close enough that Clint just sprinted right off the ledge, launching himself through the air and tackling the other marksman to the ground. The impact with the concrete punched the air from his lungs but he still held on, grappling for the upper hand as he twisted out of the way of a fist that would have crushed his larynx, Bullseye deflecting a knee to the stomach in return.

After a few more moments of struggling they were both able to extract themselves, Clint rolling to his feet as Bullseye jumped back with a manic grin.

"You got my message, I take it?" the marksman asked in a low Irish drawl, circling around as Clint did the same.

"It was a little hard to miss," Clint replied, his eyes narrowed, mouth tight. "I don't usually get fanmail delivered by an arrow in another agent's back."

Bullseye's smirk widened, and Clint wanted nothing more than to cut the expression off the bastard's ugly face. Beaumont was still in critical condition in the hospital, the shaft having pierced through a lung dangerously close to her heart. They'd been out on routine clean-up in the Bronx and Clint had been _right there_ , standing only two feet away when the arrow had come out of nowhere, puncturing Beaumont's chest with a note attached at the base of the fletching.

 _'Hit me if you can.'_

Clint had always known his past as a carnie would come back to haunt him at some point, but he'd thought it would be in the form of blackmail pictures or at the very worst, video. He'd never imagined it would be due to a ridiculous act that had boasted of him as the 'World's Greatest Marksman'.

That had been six days ago, after which SHIELD had brought up every scrap of information on Bullseye that they had. Clint had even suffered through a conference call with Daredevil, and he _hated_ that pretentious bastard. But Bullseye had fixated on him, had shot another agent because of him, and Clint wasn't ever going to let something like that slide.

The sounds of the battle the rest of the Avengers were fighting—against a resurgent HYDRA, which Steve had been very Not Pleased to find out about—had faded into the distance, they'd come so far away. Clint probably shouldn't have been surprised that Bullseye would show up during an unrelated battle; he'd barely avoided the throwing knife that had nearly impaled his hand.

"You know, I thought you would be much cooler in person," Bullseye commented, giving him a critical once-over. Clint bared his teeth at him.

"Funny, because I thought you'd have better aim."

Bullseye snarled and launched himself forward; Clint opened his arms invitingly wide. He'd gotten a taste of what the other marksman was capable of when they'd been grappling, and it didn't surprise him that they were evenly matched when it came to hand-to-hand. They traded blows that didn't land and kicks that were diffidently blocked, ducking and weaving in a fight that was more dance than anything else.

The balance finally shifted when Clint managed to shove Bullseye into a low air conditioning unit, knocking him over. He instantly surged forward, yanking the knife out of his boot and tackling Bullseye to the ground, raising his arm for a sharp, quick strike.

It never landed.

Clint sucked in a gasp of air as he was abruptly yanked off Bullseye with a strength no normal human possessed, thrown back so hard his boots skidded on the concrete as he sought to remain on his feet. Bullseye twisted back up like a cat and they both stared, panting and angry, at the Norse god now standing between them.

"You!" Bullseye snarled. "The fuck do you want?"

"I swear to _Christ_ , Loki," Clint started, but Loki cut him off with a sharp gesture.

"I told you to stay away from him," Loki snapped at Bullseye. The Irishman sneered, backing up toward the edge of the roof.

"I don't listen to no one, mate, and definitely not to you."

Clint swore as Bullseye dropped down to the next building, starting forward as he watched him disappear over the edge. He was stopped by a hand wrapping tight around his wrist, and he spun around with a snarl, yanking his arm away; the fingers of his other hand clenching tight around the hilt of his knife. Logic told him to try to end this here, remove one of the Avengers' greatest threats right now, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything. Couldn't raise his arm for the blow.

"What the _fuck_ is your game?" he spat instead, as close as he dared be to a Norse god who had a tendency to disembowel those who irritated him. "You—you keep Doom from killing me, pull that stunt at the bar, disappeared with those goddamn fire giants—and now you don't let me get rid of a man who's trying to murder me, and you—what the _hell_ do you want?"

Loki leveled him with an impassive look.

"Stay away from Bullseye."

He turned to leave and Clint lunged forward, grabbing him by the arm and spinning him around, unable to care that he was manhandling someone who made even Thor wary.

"No, you fucking talk to me," he snapped. "Tell me what you're playing at. Tell me what you want from me."

The last words were strained, just barely pleading, and Clint could hardly believe it when Loki's eyes seemed to soften in a trick of the light.

"Some of the religions in your world conform to the belief of reincarnation," he replied. "Would it surprise you if that theory was fact?"

Clint scowled, loosening his grip on Loki's arm.

"I work with a Norse god and regularly battle giant robots and space aliens. Nothing surprises me anymore."

A faint smile touched Loki's lips, and Clint was uncomfortably reminded of the bartender, whom he had basically spilled his guts to without knowing who she actually was.

"Certain cycles persist through the centuries of reincarnation," Loki continued. "You and...Bullseye are one of those cycles. You have been fighting since before time. You have been killing each other since before time." Something flickers in his eyes. "He has been killing _you_ since before time."

Clint dropped Loki's arm with a snort, shaking his head in disbelief as he stepped backward.

"Seriously? That's your explanation? And I'm supposed to believe that you're interested in this magical everlasting fight out of the good of your heart, or some bullshit?" He narrowed his eyes. "What's in it for you, Loki?"

Loki cast him a look: an expression that was part pity and part sorrow, and despite himself Clint felt something clench in his chest. He leaned forward, subconsciously, desperate to understand the god's sudden interest in him.

A muscle in Loki's jaw twitched.

"Stay away from Bullseye, Clint. You'll only get yourself killed."

Then he vanished.

Clint stood there for a few more seconds, staring blankly at the now-empty space in front of him.

He hurled his knife to the ground with a snarl.

 _"Fuck!"_

 

* * *

 

"My brother's words do have merit," Thor admitted later that day. The affirmation only served to further sour Clint's mood, already unpleasant as he pressed a pack of frozen peas against the shiner Natasha had given him for running off without backup. She was icily furious, and Phil wouldn't talk to him about anything that wasn't mission-related no matter how much he groveled.

"What, you're telling me Loki's not lying out of his ass for once?"

Thor paused with his hand on the coffeepot's handle, as though he was trying to determine how one would, in fact, lie out of their ass. After a second he shook it off, and Clint could see him mentally cataloguing the phrase under 'one of those odd mortal conventions'.

"Not all of your kind experience reincarnation," Thor allowed, pouring himself an oversized cup of coffee. He was apparently addicted to the stuff, and Clint had stopped lacing it with everything from sedatives to laxatives once Thor had made up for his broken mug by giving him one directly from Asgard. It didn't replace the one Phil had given him because _nothing_ could replace that, but it sparkled gold and had little jewels on it and Clint had always been a sucker for shiny things.

That, and Phil had yelled at him. Apparently Viagra had odd side effects when given to Asgardians.

"The ones who do are those who have found favor with those you refer to as deities," Thor went on, stirring a judicious amount of cayenne pepper into his coffee. He'd been experimenting with odd food combinations of late.

"Getting killed every lifetime is a favor?" Clint said dubiously. Thor cast him a look, raising an eyebrow.

"There are also those who fell into disfavor, and are cursed to relive their errors for eternity."

Clint paused.

"Alright, that sounds more likely," he admitted. Thor chuckled, crossing the kitchen to clap Clint on the shoulder with a stupidly casual amount of force.

"Do not concern yourself with it too much, my friend. My brother has a tendency to become caught up in his eccentricities. He usually loses interest after a few decades."

"Wonderful," Clint muttered.

Thor wandered off to do something manly and intimidating that probably involved smashing things, and Clint allowed himself a few more minutes of sulking before returning the peas to the freezer and going to hunt down Phil. Steve had given him that leaderly disappointed face for going after Bullseye (which he found ridiculous) and would probably want to Talk, Bruce was holed up in his lab, and he wasn't in the mood to go snark at Tony, for once.

Natasha was out of the question because he didn't want to get hit again.

Phil didn't even look up when Clint slipped into his office, even though only he and Fury could ever get away with that. Clint watched him fill out the paperwork he and the rest of the Avengers were able to dodge for a moment, eyes following the sharp, crisp flicks of Phil's pen. His knuckles were white and his mouth was pressed into a thin line, the slide of ink against paper just a little too forceful.

"Is there something you need, Barton?"

Phil's voice was cool, impersonal, and Clint felt his shoulders slump. He walked around the desk to sit on the floor next to Phil's chair, leaning against the drawers by his lover's leg.

"No, sir."

The soft rasp of Phil's pen paused. He wrote down a few more things before turning to Clint, who raised his head hopefully.

"You are a complete idiot who throws himself into danger at any chance he gets," Phil informed him crisply. "You run off on your own because you believe you can handle yourself, and you don't think about the kind of panic and worry you cause when you do so." He frowned down at him, making sure he had his complete attention, as though Clint didn't always give him that. "And if you do that again on my watch I swear to god, Clint, I will _hurt_ you."

His voice was calm, matter-of-fact, and Clint didn't doubt the threat for a second. There was a reason for all of the Army Ranger medals and recognitions that were thrown carelessly in a box at the back of their closet, and Phil hadn't picked up his collection of Special Forces patches at a flea market. Phil only ever got truly angry when it came to Clint: the only time he had ever hit _anyone_ he wasn't ordered to was after a stupendously stupid one-man mission against a cadre of Brazilian drug runners. Clint had barely made it out unscathed, and as soon as Phil made sure he was alright he'd punched him right in the mouth, knocking two teeth loose and sending him sprawling back on the ground spitting blood.

"Yes, sir," Clint replied quietly, looking down.

Phil inhaled a low breath and let it out slowly, evenly, the tension seeming to drain away with it. He finally pushed back his chair and sat down on the floor with Clint, wrapping him in his arms.

"I love you, so much," he said softly. "Now tell me what's going on in your head."

Clint leaned into his touch with a kind of desperate gratitude, turning to tuck his face into Phil's neck.

"God, Phil, I have no idea," he mumbled into neatly-pressed cotton. "All this shit with Loki... Everything's been hell since he showed up. I've clocked so many hours in the research department trying to figure out what he might be planning, what his end-goal is, and I can't come up with _anything_. He's the god of lies and he's focused on _me_ , and while he keeps doing weird shit like listening to me ramble while I'm drunk or send that box of arrows to Thor, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to suddenly show up and somehow trick me into doing something that will hurt everyone else."

"Those arrows were very amusing," Phil said thoughtfully, stroking Clint's hair as he mused over the situation. It soothed him immensely and it wasn't long before he was sprawled out on the ground with his head pillowed in Phil's lap, cheek pressed against his stomach.

(Said arrows were the kind of sticky nerf types that couldn't hurt anything, but they'd exploded out of the box in Thor's face in a very delightful manner that had the Norse god yelping in an entertainingly high pitch, arriving about a week after Clint complained that the blond giant had broken his mug. Arrows being what they were, Clint had proceeded to shoot everyone in sight—until it was discovered that they actually had some kind of Cupid spell on them. Tony spent the entire night expressing his undying love to JARVIS, Bruce stared at the espresso machine with a smitten expression for hours and Natasha and Fury had disappeared altogether. Needless to say, mysterious packages from 'Serrure' were no longer allowed to be opened on SHIELD grounds.)

"You know that the psych team has been keeping you under watch," Phil said, to which Clint grunted in displeased acknowledgement. "And Thor's been keeping an eye out as well. So far, there has been no trace of Loki manipulating you. He didn't even try to get any important intel out of you while you were drunk."

"Just because no one can find it doesn't mean he hasn't done something, or that he won't," Clint replied lowly. He sat up, his back to Phil as he raked his fingers through his hair.

"I told him about you," he said quietly. "About you, and Tasha, and the others. Not what we did or anything important like that, but he knows how I feel about you. That I would do anything for you guys. And if he tries to use that, if he wants to turn me..." He hunched his shoulders. "I'll fold, Phil. I'll do anything he fucking wants so long as you're safe."

"Clint..."

Phil wrapped an arm around his chest, pulling him back so he could press a kiss to his temple. He didn't say anything, didn't try to remind Clint that he's a duty-bound SHIELD agent sworn to secrecy, because they both knew it was shit. Clint would take anything, any kind of coercion or torture, and he wouldn't break. But threaten the people he cared about and he would snap like a twig. It was a constant concern for Fury, the only person aside from Phil and Natasha who actually understood that Clint held onto the few relationships he had with the desperation of someone who had been alone for too long: that he would do anything to keep something from happening to them.

In that way, he was utterly, completely grateful that Bullseye had fixated on him. The man wanted a test of skills, nothing that involved the others—and so long as Clint kept him occupied, it would stay that way.

And he kept him occupied, spending the next two months trading insults and projectiles as they chased each other across the New York skyline. Their scattered meetings grew more vicious and Loki only appeared a few times, showing up out of nowhere with that oddly distressed look on his face, always just barely in time to keep them from causing each other serious damage.

So when Clint found himself pinned to the concrete in the pouring rain, bleeding out while facing down death from one of his own arrows, he found that he actually missed the asshole god.


	3. Chapter 3

It ends like this.

Bullseye smiles, his face illuminated by a crack of lightning as the rain pours down around them.

"I guess that shapeshifting bastard was right," he comments, eyes dancing. "I am gonna kill you."

Clint's vision wavers as water drips down into his eyes, glaring back defiantly. If he can't die on his feet, he'll die facing his death head on. But even so, he struggles to ignore the helpless panic and grief that clutches its icy claws around his heart. So many things he's done and hasn't done; and he has no more time to fix them, now.

Bullseye pulls back his arm, preparing to let the arrow fly.

Then he freezes.

Clint stares uncomprehendingly as Bullseye's eyes grow huge, the arrow tumbling from his fingers. He inhales a shocked breath as a sharp silver blade whispers out the front of his opponent's chest. Bullseye stares down in disbelief at the blade impaling him and Clint struggles to shake off the darkness that edges his vision, squinting through the pain to find Loki standing behind his foe, a sword in his hand and his eyes filled with millennia of sorrow.

"No, Vali," the god says softly. "Not this time."

Bullseye lets out a soft whimpering noise as Loki slips the sword from his body, slumping lifelessly to the ground. Clint watches as Loki kneels next to him, reaching out to close empty unseeing eyes. There's wetness on the god's cheeks but he can't tell if it's rain or tears; finally letting himself sag against the ground as pain consumes him. It's a low, dull throb, constant and pulsing and he doesn't know how much blood he's lost; only that it's too much.

"Nari. Nari, look at me."

The words hold a command that Clint can't disobey. He opens his eyes without remembering when he had closed them, raising his head blearily as Loki's hand cups his cheek. He looks up into distraught blue eyes and something in his chest seems to open up, calming and all-encompassing as it flows through him. Images flit through his mind: glimpses of arching spires and golden apples and a bridge made of rainbows, and he's expecting pink ponies next but what comes instead is a tree too enormous for his brain to comprehend, housing three women who watch him with curious empty eyes.

The world fades in and out and Clint raises his hand weakly, words he doesn't understand coming from his own mouth.

" _Far,_ " he whispers hoarsely. " _Far, vær så snill..._ "

"Quiet, now," Loki murmurs, taking hold of his arm gently. Clint exhales a soft breath of air as warmth suffuses his broken wrist. Loki's touch drops from his cheek to his chest and similar heat envelops his impaled shoulder, the pain wracking his body fading, but not entirely gone. His eyes slip shut against his will.

"Loki!"

Phil's panicked voice makes Clint twitch, but he doesn't have the energy to look up or acknowledge his lover's presence in any way. He's already resigned himself to the fact that whether he lives or dies is no longer in his control—his fate is in the hands of others, now.

"Come here, quickly," Loki says, and there's none of the usual mockery or taunting or impishness in his voice. Only fear, and desperation, and apparently Phil is too distressed to argue because Clint senses when another body crouches next to him without protest, hearing a sharp intake of breath and feeling familiar fingers against his cheek.

"Clint—"

"I cannot heal him," Loki rasps. "Not these wounds. Not this severity."

"Romanov, I need a med-evac at my location, now."

 _"Kind of busy, sir—"_

"It's Clint."

 _"Give me two minutes."_

"What happened?" Phil demands tightly. His voice is that of Agent Coulson, the overseer of the Avengers; the man who did the dirty work and The Man With Whom You Do Not Fuck. The fact that he's facing down a Norse god doesn't matter at all to him, and Clint would be cooing over his awesomeness if he was actually physically able to do so.

"I arrived too late," Loki replies bitterly.

"Then Bullseye—"

"Yes. I killed him."

Loki's tone is completely flat, guarded and clearly not permitting any further discussion on the matter. And Phil actually lets it slide, his fingers stroking helplessly through Clint's hair.

"Clint, stay with me, okay? We're getting you out of here. You're going to be alright."

"Yessir," he whispers. There's wetness on his lips and he's not sure if it's rain or blood or both, drenched to the bone, his body shivering to combat the chill and the pain. His entire body hurts, but he knows his injuries and it's not nearly as bad as it should be—and he knows that has everything to do with Loki's hands still laying on him.

"Brother! Son of Coul!"

"Are those goats?" Phil asks, his voice eerily, dangerously calm. "You have a chariot pulled by _flying goats?_ "

Clint has to see that one. He struggles to raise his head, prying his eyelids apart, gummed with blood from a slash over his left brow. Phil's kneeling in front of him, head turned around as he stares at a floating, jewel-encrusted chariot that Thor is currently landing on the ground next to them. It is, in fact, pulled by goats.

"The Lady Widow said you needed urgent assistance. Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder are faster than any flight machine you have nearby. Come, bring Hawkeye and we shall take him to your healing room."

"Emergency room," Clint mumbles, reflexively. He feels Phil's palm on his forehead and that can't mean any good, so he looks up into his lover's eyes. There's worry there, concern as well as determination, and one of the rarest emotions ever to grace Phil Coulson's face: fear.

"You're going to be alright," he says quietly. Clint manages to summon a weak smile.

They have to cut the rod that pins him to the wall like a twitching butterfly, and Clint either screams or passes out or both as the metal jars inside him. Everything sheens in red and the iron taste in his mouth intensifies, and he has to forcefully resist the compulsion to vomit. In some hysterical part of his brain he remembers dying like this before, impaled with a spear that spilled his guts out onto dark Roman soil; his blood staining the dirt with all of the other legionnaires'.

Loki uses some kind of purple-fire magic to trim the rod down as close to Clint's body as he can, and strong hands maneuver him into the chariot—did it just grow bigger?—with a gentleness that can't do anything for the pain that spasms through his body. He lets out a choked sob and Phil murmurs at him soothingly, holding onto him as the chariot rises into the sky. It's even colder like this, drenched with rain and the wind buffeting his chill skin.

"It's okay, Clint," Phil soothes softly. His fingers stroke through the drenched mess of his hair, tender and comforting. "We're getting you to a hospital. You'll be okay soon. You'll be alright..."

Phil's words fade into the background as Clint's ears pick up on another conversation: one very close, spoken via undertones in a language he shouldn't know.

 _"What have you done to him, brother?"_

He's riding hard and fast through a thickly-wooded forest. Froth from his horse's mouth flecks across his face as he bends low over the saddle, reins gripped so tight that the leather has bitten into his hands. The messages carried in his satchel aren't worth his life but his pursuers aren't after them: they just want him dead.

He rides and he rides and he rides, but the Paiute know the terrain better than he does, and he falls with an arrow in his throat.

 _"I have done nothing."_

 _"Do not lie to me, Loki. I have spent quite some time with Hawkeye. He has never shown the soul of an Aesir before."_

The word tickles something in the back of Clint's mind. But at this point he's having trouble simply remembering his own name, and the significance slips between his fingers.

 _"You have been shielding him, haven't you? Why, brother? What is it about this mortal that interests you so greatly?"_

Mortars explode in the sand ahead. Gunfire rings out and men are shouting orders, the landing craft moving forward agonizingly slowly. Someone bellows about the Germans having some kind of new tech, an explosion shaking the boat as he clutches his rifle tightly to his chest, fear and adrenalin coursing through his veins.

He dies before he reaches the beach.

 _"He is not just a mortal."_

 _"Then what—"_

 _"Later, Thor. Take us down onto the top of that building with the red cross. You may interrogate me after he is taken care of."_

There's a brief unhappy pause, but Thor replies with a grudging, _"Very well."_

They land amidst shouting and a flurry of motion. Hands reach for him and Clint doesn't have the energy to even open his eyes as he's moved onto what feels like a gurney. He tries to reach for Phil or Loki or Thor or _someone_ but his fingers won't respond to his commands, the sounds of commotion fading as warmth suffuses his body.

"Shit, he's lost so much blood—"

"Sir? Sir, can you hear me? Sir? He's nonresponsive—"

Clint smiles sadly as he drifts on the wave of peaceful calm, feeling himself sink further into the comforting black.

"Nari—"

"Clint!"

His lips shape a soundless 'sorry'.

And then the darkness takes him.


	4. Chapter 4

It begins like this.

Waking up is like swimming through water in full combat gear, his lungs screaming and body weighed down as he tries to struggle toward the light of consciousness. Brightness sears his eyes when he tries to open them and he wonders if he's died but the moldy taste in his mouth and the heaviness in his body point toward sedation, not death. But then, he's never died before.

Except he has, over and over and over again, and somehow he knows this isn't death.

Clint squints into the light as he manages to pry his eyelids apart, the source of the illumination coming from bright fluorescents in the ceiling above. He's on his back, laying prone, and everything fucking hurts. There are casts on his leg and wrist and a soft whimper rattles his throat as he tries to push himself up to take in his surroundings.

It's a SHIELD recovery room, that's for certain: he's been in them enough times to know. The location isn't terribly surprising, but the people scattered around the room give him a bit of pause.

Natasha's tucked onto a cushioned chair in the corner, her legs propped over one arm and her cheek resting against the back, asleep and still managing to make the position look gracefully comfortable. Thor is sleeping on the small table near the window, sitting with his chest and arms sprawled across it. Phil's sitting at his bedside with his head pillowed on his arms as he sleeps on Clint's right side, and to the left...

To the left is Loki, watching him with an inscrutable expression, the ancient-looking book in his lap apparently all but forgotten.

Clint parts his lips but no coherent sounds come out, his throat rasping and dry. Loki holds up his hand and then there is a glass of water in his hand, and the trickster god frowns for a moment before a straw pops into existence as well. He raises it to Clint's mouth.

He drains about half the glass before slumping back against the pillows, the strain of partially sitting up and craning his neck pathetically taxing. He swallows as Loki sets the glass on the bedside table, licking his dry lips; running through the flashes of coherent memory he has access to as he considers his next words.

Or, word.

"Father?" he tries.

Loki stiffens instantly, as though shocked with a live wire. He stares at Clint with immeasurable pain and sorrow and hope and fear in his eyes, his entire body tense as he searches his gaze. After a long moment he nods, jerkily.

"Yes."

Clint nods in return, letting out a low, slow breath. He looks down at Phil as he mulls over the significance of this confirmation in his head, sliding his hand over to rest atop his lover's own. Phil sighs softly in his sleep, fingertips curling around Clint's palm, giving him that little bit of grounding he was lacking. He looks back up.

"When—how...long? You're...here?"

"You have been unconscious for six days," Loki replies. "Two were spent in the hospital before Director Fury had you transferred here. As for my being here..." his lips twitch. "I go where I please, regardless of your SHIELD's policy of not allowing 'villains' inside their buildings. They were forced to accept that fact once they discovered they would be unable to stop me."

Clint digests that for a moment. He weighs his options, pitting logic against reason against fact against knowledge, and in the end the impossible wins out. It often does, when it comes to his life.

"Vali," he rasps. Talking hurts. "You—called him Vali. And me...called me..."

"Nari," Loki finishes for him quietly, the slight smile fading from his face.

Clint smiles crookedly, the expression just this side of bitter.

Because he knows the legends. He knows the folktales. Even if some of the others hadn't paid much attention to their crash-course in Norse mythology, he had: he'd gone out of his way to know as much as he could. He knew about the fates of Vali and Nari Lokison; their roles in binding the trickster god with death and blood.

"Explain," he says softly.

Loki looks at him, pained, but he doesn't deny the request—the demand. Clint understands the basics, but he wants the gaps filled in by the being who had started it all. He needs that much.

He's owed that much.

"You were just children," Loki murmurs. "Not two days old. At the moment of your birth I was given a glimpse of your futures—a fragmented shard of what may come. You were my joy, and my punishment. I saw Ragnarok, the end of worlds... I saw myself bound by your blood, and Vali stood over your body."

He glances away, then, and Clint can't fault him. He tightens his grip on Phil's hand and Phil mumbles a little, as if wanting to reassure him even while asleep.

"I sent you to Midgard," Loki continues quietly. "I bartered a deal to erase your names from the Book of Hel, that you might be reborn: reincarnated as humans, separate and whole, without any knowledge of Asgard. I...did not want to see any more of your lives."

His voice lowers.

"I did not want to watch you die."

Clint swallows, and he's sure he's going to wake Phil up with the force he's using to hang onto him.

"I thought you would be able to live in peace, apart, but I was wrong. You found each other. Every lifetime, every rebirth, you found each other. And every time, you died. Every life, Vali found you and killed you, and every life, I felt you die."

Loki barrels on before Clint even has the chance to think of taking a breath, shame and regret weighing down his words.

"I rarely visited Midgard, so I never had to face what I had done. Except, when I fell from Asgard... I fell to Earth, and then I came to find Thor, where you..."

He looks down at his hands, long graceful fingers twined together in his lap.

"I would not abandon you again. Not this time."

Clint swallows. Any witty reply or flippant comeback he might have had dies before it can even surface, because he can't ignore the inescapable feeling of _truth_ that Loki's words elicit. He can sense something different about himself, something humming beneath the surface of his skin, and worst of all he can _remember_. He can see every past life, every past death; and Bullseye—Vali—was always the one there, at the end.

"You killed him," he says softly, instead. And he doesn't know why that hurts so much because the man was a psychopathic bastard, but the image of Bullseye lying limp and lifeless on the wet concrete makes something twist horribly in his chest.

"Yes," Loki whispers. The pain in his voice just drives the knife in Clint's heart further inward, and god, what is _happening_ to him? "Yes, I did."

"Why?"

Loki glances away briefly before looking back up, extending an elegant hand. He rests the very tips of his fingers against Clint's chest, and a kind of warm recognition floods through his body, energy tickling all the way down to his toes.

"You feel it, don't you?" he says. "The Aesir in you. When I was keeping you alive," and Clint grimaces, but he doesn't deny the fact, "My power opened up the part of you that was locked away, and that will not be undone. In whatever rebirth you have after this one, should you choose to live out the rest of this mortal life, you will remember everything. You will be born aware. Vali..."

Loki shakes his head slowly, sorrowfully, as he pulls back his hand.

"His mind was broken. And if I woke him as he was, it would be broken forever, every lifetime a repeat of this one. When he is reborn, if I can find him—when I find him—I can raise him without the pain he suffered. I can make him whole."

"You want a second chance," Clint murmurs.

Loki smiles at him painfully.

"Is that so much to ask for?" he asks, voice soft. "I have gone millennia being irresponsible, trying to pretend that I was doing what was right for you both, when I knew it to be a lie. I could have stopped this cycle centuries ago, but I never did. I have no wish to continue being that manner of father. That manner of man."

There's something mournful in his tone, and Clint doesn't know all of the details of what happened in Asgard regarding Thor's banishment and later reinstatement—but he knows enough. He looks down at Phil, who he's now certain Loki put under some kind of sleeping spell along with the others, because Phil could go from dead asleep to having a gun in his hand and taking out two intruders in under five seconds flat given the softest noise.

('Vacation' in Sydney. It hadn't ended well.)

Clint traces his fingers along the back of Phil's knuckles. The only father he really remembers is an alcoholic who regularly beat him, and he had rejoiced when the man died. There are distant memories of others, from wealthy gentry to destitute paupers, all from past lives he'd rather forget he'd had—but none of them bring up the same feeling of _belonging_ that thrums through him when he looks at Loki.

"I have a family already," he says lowly. "When the family I was born to failed me, I found my own."

Loki shakes his head.

"I do not mean to replace anyone, Nari, or intrude on your life," he replies. "I simply wish to make things right."

Clint studies him for a long time, marking the emotions on his face even as he tries to categorize his own. The pull he feels toward Loki is unmistakable—and when he examines it, he can feel threads tugging him toward Thor as well; and, far away, a tiny soul that he instinctively understands will become Vali. Thick cords bind him to Natasha and Phil, slimmer ones connecting him to the rest of the Avengers, and Clint knows that no matter what form they take, he will never let anyone go who holds one of the few spaces in his heart.

"You're going to find Vali?" he asks. If anything is going to be repaired, if Loki is going to show him he's being sincere at all, it will have to start there.

"Yes," Loki affirms, his eyes intent. Clint purses his lips.

"There will be rules," he warns. Loki raises an eyebrow but nods his assent, so he continues, "And I don't know what all of them are yet, but the first one is going to be that you call me Clint. That's my name." Before Loki has a chance to speak he adds on hastily, "And the second one is no more destroying things downtown, because it's annoying and SHIELD docks damage control pay."

Loki's mouth twitches.

"I'll see what I can do," he concedes.

Clint eyes him a few moments longer before nodding in satisfaction, allowing some of the tension in his shoulders to drain away. It may be just a flimsy façade of control, for now, but it's enough to settle him back into something that resembles his usual calm. He tilts his head to the side pointedly.

"Now give me back Phil; I haven't had nearly enough TLC for someone who got run through just a week ago."

Loki does smirk, then, and with a flick of his wrist the atmosphere in the room _shifts_. Clint strokes the back of Phil's hand and his lover sits up immediately, blinking at him in instant awareness as Natasha stretches languidly in the corner. Fingers immediately twine with his own, and the relief and love on Phil's face steals Clint's breath away. To his left, Loki innocuously picks up his book to continue reading.

And despite the daily tendency to put his life at risk, despite the fact he's a reincarnated Norse myth and that his family is a rather psychotic group of individuals with serious amounts of issues to work on, Clint has a feeling that things will sort themselves out in the end.


	5. One Year Later

"Goddammit Hawkeye, watch where you're going!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Clint yells, jumping off Tony's back and narrowly avoiding getting crisped by one of his flight stabilizers. The version of him that was just being strangled by the neurotic witch they're currently fighting shatters into pieces in the—admittedly gorgeous—woman's hands, and she lets out an angry shriek as she turns to his current location, hurling a green ball of fire that Steve deflects with his shield.

He still hasn't gotten used to the multiple-copies thing. Loki does it so _easily_ , but it's hit or miss with Clint: sometimes he leaves his copy behind to teleport to safety, and sometimes he leaves his copy behind only to appear somewhere eight feet above the actual ground to land atop an _extremely_ disgruntled Tony Stark.

"Enchantress!" Thor bellows, in the middle of fighting a rather impressive-looking Asgardian with an overcompensatingly huge axe. Natasha's busy taking down two massive frost giants and Tony had been occupied with some kind of fire-breathing smoking animal-like _thing_ before Clint landed on him.

"Cease this attack at once!" Thor orders, hurling the executioner-guy away with a heavy blow from Mjolnir. He stalks toward the witch, smashing aside a few stray animal-things in his path. "If you leave now, Amora, you will not be—"

Clint doesn't hear what the witch won't be because at that moment Loki pops into existence directly in front of him, nearly getting an arrow in the face as Clint lurches backward. The god is wearing a rather simple set of robes and a beaming grin on his face, and he has a tiny bundle cradled in his arms and Clint _knows_ what that means, a burst of excitement thrumming through the adrenalin pounding in his system.

"I found him!" Loki says excitedly, taking a step forward. "Clint, I found him, I found—"

"Not a good time!" Clint squawks, grabbing Loki by the shoulder and yanking him down as a foot-long shard of ice smashes against the wall where he'd been standing.

Loki blinks. He turns around, very slowly, and Clint can _see_ the anger flickering around him.

(Literally, he can see it. Some kind of Asgardian thing to perceive emotions that he hasn't figured out how to turn off yet, which is both useful and terrifying—because while knowing when Bruce is about to blow is a good thing, knowing when Tony's horny really, really isn't.)

Loki holds the little bundle close to his chest with one arm; the other flashes out, and Natasha skids to a halt in the midst of a running leap as the two frost giants shatter into pieces: small, vicious-looking undoubtedly-spelled daggers embedded in their chests. The fiery animal-thing fighting Tony just turns tail and _runs_ , scampering back to its mistress and hiding behind her legs as Loki straightens.

"My lord!" the witch says delightedly, and Clint is _so very not surprised_ that Loki knows all of the crazy beautiful people in the nine realms. "We wondered where you had gone, you disappeared so suddenly—"

The psycho bitch takes a step forward, arms outstretched. Clint snaps an arrow from his quiver, training it on her in a heartbeat as the rest of the Avengers go equally tense, Natasha pulling out one of her scary strangle-you-with-piano-wire coils.

But Loki just snaps his fingers, points at the witch, and says, "Shoo."

She disappears.

Steve blinks, waving his hand through the green smoke where executioner-man used to be before casting a perplexed look at Clint. He shrugs with a 'what can you do?' expression and slings his bow across his back as Loki turns around, the wide smile back in place like he hadn't just easily dealt with the foe they'd been fighting for the past two hours.

" _Clint_ ," he says again, and suddenly Clint's reminded of why the eccentric god showed up so suddenly. His mouth goes suddenly dry, and he wipes his hands on his pants as he takes a hesitant step forward, looking from Loki to the bundle he's cradling gently in his arms.

"That's..." he breathes, something tightening in his throat. Loki's grin softens to something fond and gentle, and he nods as he crosses the distance between them, turning back the baby-blue blanket in his arms to reveal a slumbering, peaceful-looking infant just a few months old.

"He was in Norway," Loki says as Clint reaches out a shaky hand, stroking his fingers across the babe's round cheek. "After all these lifetimes, he was reborn in the place where we Asgardians first set foot on Midgard."

"He...was he..?" Clint glances at Loki, whose features tighten. The god shakes his head. No, he hadn't taken the child away from a loving family who would have cherished him. Clint nods—and then his attention is abruptly dragged back as a tiny hand wraps around his finger and he stares, wide-eyed, as the babe holds onto him with a surprisingly strong grip. Bright blue eyes blink up at him sleepily.

"Vali," he murmurs wonderingly.

"Loki..?"

Clint looks up, surprised to find the rest of the Avengers hanging around at a polite distance, clearly interested but allowing them their little moment. All but Thor, who's standing hesitantly a few feet away, looking at them with an almost painfully hopeful expression. There had been progress, on that front: every time Loki dropped in to point out the location of a bad guy to them or to give Clint some new spelled arrows or bring Phil an ancient Ming vase after he'd mentioned he liked them, there was always at least a brief exchange with Thor. More repair was needed between them than was with Loki and Clint, and while both sides showed promise, there was still lingering uncertainty on both ends.

Clint glances from Loki to Thor, seeing the surprise on the trickster god's face. After a few moments Thor's expression starts to wilt and that's when Loki nods, motioning him over. He gently disentangles Vali's hand from around Clint's finger—the infant pouts, wrinkling up his nose—and turns to Thor, smiling tentatively.

"Vali, this is Thor," he says softly as Thor stares, dumbstruck, at the tiny being in his brother's arms. "This is your uncle."

Vali makes a soft cooing noise and Clint can _feel_ the swell of pride and joy and relief that emanates from Thor like heat off a burner. A ridiculous, silly grin spreads across his face as he takes a step forward, beaming down at the child that could likely fit in his palm.

"Hail, Vali Lokison," he says, smiling through the formality as he leans down, stroking his thumb across Vali's forehead.

Vali snuffles at him, scrunches up his nose and promptly sneezes in his face.

There's a brief, startled silence, and then Clint starts cracking up.

And that's how Phil finds them, Clint bent over gasping for air through wheezing giggles, the other Avengers snickering like children as Thor wipes off his face. The grin still hasn't faded, and as Phil slips an arm around Clint's waist, leaning comfortably against him, the sound of Loki's laughter rings bright and joyous in the air.


End file.
